Everyone knows about the Honor Flight chapters around the country that honor WWII veterans (as well as other vets) by transporting them to Washington, D.C., to visit the veterans memorial. Not everyone has an opportunity to help these chapters, but Tropical Web Works jumped at the chance to build the local Southwest Florida Honor Flight chapter a new web site, pro bono.

This is a small site with only a handful of pages, but since it’s built using WordPress, it’s ready whenever the chapter is ready to start blogging about their activities.

• Southwest Florida Honor Flight

This large and complex real estate site for a local real estate brokerage uses custom programming to allow users to view and search for real estate listings. Individual Realtors associated with the broker have their own geographically focused sections of the site that they can use for blogging and to highlight open houses, new listings, etc., in their areas.

• Suncoasteam Team Realty

Charlotte Harbor Sailing offers sailing lessons and captained sailing charters out of Charlotte Harbor. They needed a site to showcase photos and vidoes from past sails and to present a variety of fees for different types of lessons and charters. Because the site is built using WordPress, they are able to edit prices and other details themselves, and to add photos and videos as desired.

The menu in the sidebar uses custom CSS to display a single image as a mosaic behind the navigation buttons. I love the developments in CSS that make this sort of thing practical. I have implemented this technique in the past — involving tedious slicing and dicing of many individual images with another set of “over” versions to display on hover. Modern CSS allows this with a single background image by simply adjusting the position of the image for each link, and using a partially transparent overlay on hover.

• Charlotte Harbor Sailing

Sandra Rubinstein, a Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway, needed to combine into one site her own site and the blog she had through a third-party real estate blogging service. We customized a WordPress theme to look like the existing site, incorporated the MLS search and listing display functionality, and included WordPress’s built-in blogging capability to bring everything under one roof.

This site includes WordPress plugins that automatically post Sandra’s blog posts to her Facebook and Twitter accounts, so maximize her social media efforts.

• Sandra Sells Real Estate

The Belknap College site is a labor of love by Belknap alumnu Jim Mulligan. Belknap College, a small liberal arts college in New Hampshire, closed down years ago, and Jim wanted a way to stay in touch with classmates across the years.

The site makes use of the BBPress plugin for WordPress to incorporate a message board into the site, and features photos of alumni reunions, shared memories, and “where are they now” pages.

• Belknap College

For websites that need to be developed under a strict budget, WordPress makes it easy to set up a functional and usable site with minimal time and therefore minimal fees.

Papol’s Premium Property Management needed a small website and had a small budget for it. Install WordPress, install a favorite theme, create the pages, and have the client build out the content. Bada-bing bada-boom, and we’re done, with only a minimal cost to the client.

• Papol’s Property Management

Interior Plant Scapes needed a lush, vibrant-looking site to reflect the living vibrance of the plants they provide to their clients.

The site offers in-place before-and-after photos of client locations before IPS and after IPS. The different is stunning. Separate sections showcase the company’s interior scapes, sidewalk scapes, pool & pation scapes, and event scapes. Multiple photo galleries and videos round out the offering.

• Interior Plant Scapes

Punta Gorda Yacht Brokers, a local used boat brokerage, needed a refresh from their previous site, which was also created by Tropical Web Works. We designed a fresh new visual design that incorporate the same content from the original site. The site includes prominent links to the brokerage’s sister company, Gulf Island Sails, as well as their boats listed for sale on YachtWorld.

• Punta Gorda Yacht Brokers

The Bevis Group — Lyn Bevis and his team at RE/MAX Harbor Realty — needed a modernized website offering visitors the ability to Lyn’s own listings, to search the MLS, and to showcase recently listed properties throughout Charlotte County. They also had specific rquirements, needing the site to match their printed marketing materials.

The site uses custom programming to access the IDX datafeed from the Mid-Florida Regional MLS, updating listings twice daily. All property listings are accessible to search engine spiders for indexing, and are also easily accessible to human visitors. The Google Maps API is used to show property locations, and a mortgage calculator helps buyers determine how much house they can afford.

• The Bevis Group, Lyn Bevis, Realtor